(MONEY Magazine) – As nice as it would be to ignore the hoopla surrounding the millennial year, you'd have to be a deaf hermit living in a cave in Tibet to do so. But aside from some inevitable glitches, I don't see the year 2000 as such a big deal.

Granted, those who think Armageddon is nigh do seem to be getting some backing from nature--given the drought in the Northeast this summer, the autumn's hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, and the dash of pestilence in and around New York City (as we go to press, seven people and potentially hundreds of birds have died of the mosquito-borne West Nile-like virus). If Egypt endures a plague of frogs, I'll have to rethink my position.

Until then, I see the new millennium not as the final day of reckoning, but as a great time do some financial reckoning. Therefore, in the spirit of a new century, I hereby proclaim that:

--It's time to get serious about figuring out where I stand financially. Okay, I pay my bills, and I no longer carry balances on my credit cards. But I do have to figure out the cost basis of the stocks I've inherited or received as gifts, as well as organize the statements from the myriad dividend reinvestment programs I take part in.

--I will stop fighting technology and put it to work for me. I will engage in more stealth saving, via automatic deductions from my paycheck. I will not impulsively open accounts with online brokers "just in case" I decide to trade on the Net. What's more, I'll stop making Lucent send me dividend checks for $1.08 and authorize them to deposit those vast sums into my savings account, which could use the help.

--I will try to think of checking and savings accounts as Church and State. I will try to stop transferring money back and forth by phone. Really. I mean it.

--I will diversify. That means getting over whatever psychological...thing...keeps me from selling some of the stock of the company that my late father worked for. If I hadn't chickened out when I wanted to sell at $45, I wouldn't have so big a stake in a going-nowhere $32-a-share regional bank that my broker now says is "cheap."

--I will refuse to pay the "stupid tax." That means not throwing away my money. Although I don't play the lottery--or day-trade--I do support my health club as if it were a charity. If I want to give away $78 a month, I'll send it to Doctors Without Borders instead. Or else I'll have to work out often enough to meet my target price/workout ratio. Now that would be a millennial change.

--SUZANNE WOOLLEY